Pizza night! There were no sweeter words as a kid, and pizza often accompanied a movie night with the family or a party with friends. It was fast, easy, and everyone ate it. But we had few choices. There were different toppings, but pizza was just, well, pizza.
That has changed dramatically, as choosing a pizza can now necessitate an online deep dive into the culinary underworld. Do you want a comforting Chicago-style deep dish or a light and pillowy Neapolitan? A classic New York thin crust or one of those square pies suddenly popping up everywhere? A California-born creation with sourdough crust and seasonal veggies, or just a “regular pizza” with peppers, onions, and cupped pepperoni?
Diablo is here to help. We scoured the streets to ID the latest trends, speak with the hottest pizzaiolos, and pin down the various styles of pizza in the East Bay. We also interviewed the ultimate insider: Slice House’s noted expert Tony Gemignani, who shares his insights fordiablomag.com. So grab a slice (or a square).
NEW YORK
STATE FLOUR PIZZA COMPANY | BERKELEY
Having worked for years as an underground DJ in the Bay Area, Derek Lau is well versed in bringing people together through music. Restaurants aren’t all that different. “There is a flow when you’re cooking in the kitchen that’s similar,” he says, “a rhythm that creates a kind of connected feeling.”
Which is why it isn’t so surprising that he entered the cooking field as a pragmatic outlet for his creative personality, spending more than a decade learning the ropes as a line cook at such acclaimed San Francisco restaurants as the Palace Hotel and Michelin-starred Benu and Saison. After tiring of those high-pressure kitchens, Lau landed at PizzaHacker, where he credits the mentorship of pizzaiolo Jeff Krupman as an inspiration to launch his State Flour Pizza Company this September. Lau’s style, however, is more influenced by the ubiquitous, unassuming pizzerias that he fell in love with while visiting New York City.
“It’s an art there,” he says. “They say it’s in the water, but I feel that it’s just in the culture. I wanted to bring in California ingredients but keep the New York personality.”
Lau uses organic Central Milling flour and prefermented yeast-based dough for a chewy crust that’s thin but sturdy, with a cracker-y exterior accented by a touch of char from the gas brick oven. Combined with a judicious use of sauce and mozzarella cheese, his base margherita has a distinctly East Coast feel. Not so for some of his other pies. The burrata is topped with dollops of chilled creamy mozzarella, while the maximalist BLTCEA loads on bacon, arugula, cherry tomatoes, a farm egg, and avocado dressing.
Lau is determined to keep State Flour welcoming for all. The menu highlights a basic “keiki-style” 14-inch round for kids. And for lunch, he’ll be phasing in that most egalitarian of offerings: the single slice.
“It’s important for me to do that. We want this to be a place that’s affordable and accessible.” instagram.com/stateflourpizza. —E.F.
For more, try Emilia’s Pizzeria in Berkeley, Walnut Creek’s Pancoast Pizza, and Emeryville’s Rotten City Pizza.
Pizza Parts: Sourdough vs. Yeast Crust
Sourdough
TRIGGER: Yeast and lactic acid bacteria form a “living” starter that serves as the rising agent.
TIMING: Slower. It can take several hours, even days, for sourdough to rise and proof.
TASTE: Typically results in a more complex, sour flavor profile.
Yeast
TRIGGER: Fresh or dried commercial (or baker’s) yeast is used as the dough’s rising agent.
TIMING: Faster. A standard yeast dough will rise in hours (but can be longer depending on method).
TASTE: Typically results in a more standard “bready” flavor profile.
Tony Says
Often using a lighter sauce and cheese profile with whole milk mozzarella, New York-style traditionally features a crust cooked in a brick-bottom oven that enables its famous slices to be folded, cardboard style, for noshing on-the-go. Contrary to popular opinion, slices can—and should—be reheated before serving, says Gemignani. “Reheating for 45 seconds to a minute is an important component to the slice—it’s what makes the bottom crispier.”
CLASSIC
MUCH ADO ABOUT PIZZA | PLEASANTON
Many people took to making bread during the stay-at-home days of the pandemic. But how many ended up launching a pizza shop?
Spoiler alert: Mark and Kira Zabrowski did. The Livermore couple always wanted to start a business, and when they found themselves feeling unfulfilled teaching high school classes over Zoom, they started writing a business plan and slowly turning Kira’s new baking hobby into a brick-and-mortar restaurant.
In June, they opened Much Ado About Pizza in Pleasanton. Theater masks and Shakespeare posters decorate the small, takeout-only space, and you’re bound to find the Zabrowskis wearing Elizabethan hats. The fun extends to the menu, too: The half and half is called Romeo and Juliet (for a house divided, of course), and the eight-ingredient combo is named Henry the “8.”
But the high-quality pizza doesn’t need theatrics. The hearty crust is made from 72-hour fermented sourdough, and a variety of dips are available to ensure you eat every last crumbly bite. Fresh artisanal toppings—from Wisconsin cheese to Livermore honey—make the flavors stand out among other classic pies.
Ultimately, the Zabrowskis would love to see Much Ado become a gathering place for the community—especially the local theater crowd. They dream of hosting rehearsals here, even of building a black box theater.
“During COVID, we really saw how being together is important,” says Mark. “Pizza supports all of that—plus it’s delicious.” muchadoaboutpizzaca.com. —L.J.
For more classic pizza, try Skipolini’s (multiple locations), Rocco’s Ristorante Pizzeria in Walnut Creek, and Pleasanton’s Gay Nineties Pizza Co. For California pies, head to Lafayette’s Pizza Antica, Berkeley’s Rose Pizzeria, and Sliver in Berkeley, Danville, and Oakland.
Pizza Parts: Veggies Everywhere
VEGETARIAN TOPPINGS: Increasingly, pizzerias deliver not just peppers and onions, but fresh and often seasonal pizza toppings. Much Ado About Pizza, for example, offers roasted sunchokes and sun-dried tomatoes, peaches with ricotta, butternut squash, and even broccoli.
VEGETARIAN ONLY: Berkeley’s beloved Cheese Board started the trend, but Sliver—with locations in Berkeley, Oakland, and now Danville—has expanded the concept of spotlighting just one vegetarian pizza special per day.
VEGAN: Many local favorites and chains now provide vegan cheeses and cauliflower crusts as substitutions, making some classic flavors more accessible.
Tony Says
What do you call pizza that’s not thin crust or thick crust or Sicilian or Neapolitan, but rather is just, kind of, pizza? Gemignani labels it “traditional” or “classic” American. Think cupped pepperoni, onions, and peppers, and a robust, fairly uniform crust-to-sauce-to-cheese ratio. “It’s the kind of pizza you grew up with, and loved, as a kid.” In the Bay Area, meanwhile, many mom-and-pop pizzerias have undergone a California evolution toward seasonal, sustainable ingredients, veggie-forward toppings, and even a sourdough crust.
NEAPOLITAN
DOPPIO ZERO | CONCORD
Neapolitan is perhaps the most defined of pizzas. Tracing its roots back centuries to Naples and southern Italy, there is an acute focus on the rules surrounding the ingredients, preparation, and cooking method that qualify this style as “authentic.” No one knows this better than Doppio Zero’s Gianni Chiloiro, who launched his first East Bay location two years ago in Concord’s Veranda shopping center. The restaurant (there are also locations in San Francisco and Mountain View) even devotes an entire blog post on its website to the strict requirements for Vera Pizza Napoletana certification—Italian San Marzano tomatoes are a must, for example.
“The Neapolitan pizza is about 10 to 11 inches with thin crust at the base and puffs up around the crust, with an airy soft and light crust that is cooked in an artisan oven,” Chiloiro says, adding that Doppio Zero’s high-temperature wood-fired oven is handmade by Italian craftsmen.
While Neapolitan pizza may seem ubiquitous these days, that wasn’t the case when Chiloiro moved to the U.S. in the 1980s and launched his first San Francisco restaurant in 1992 with the “hope of introducing authentic southern Italian food in the Bay Area.”
And as with the best Italian cuisine, the beauty of these seemingly simple pies derives from paying minute attention to turning a few top-quality ingredients into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
In Doppio Zero’s classic margherita, the crust’s perimeter is superheated to pillowy perfection, with creamy fior di latte mozzarella melted into soupy rivulets atop gently sweet San Marzano tomato sauce. One bite and it’s clear why so much scrutiny is paid to safeguarding the authenticity of this pizza.
“If you eat here tomorrow and try the same [pizza] in a year,” Chiloiro says, “the taste is as great as the first time you had it.” dzpizzeria.com/concord. —E.F.
For more, try Danville’s Locanda Ravello, Lucia’s Berkeley, and Oakland’s Pizzaiolo.
Pizza Parts: Soft Italian Cheeses
FRESH MOZZARELLA:Made from hand-stretched curds of cow and buffalo milk. Buffalo mozzarella is made from the higher-fat milk of water buffalo. Fior di latte mozzarella comes from cow’s milk and is lighter in texture.
BURRATA:Made from cow and buffalo milk mozzarella curds soaked in sweet cream. “Stracciatella” is the term for the creamy interior in a pouch of fresh mozzarella.
RICOTTA: Made from cow’s milk most commonly, but also buffalo, sheep, and goat’s milk; it’s made from the whey left over in the production of other cheeses.
Tony Says
Neapolitan pizza is perhaps best known by how it’s cooked—which is volcanically, in a 905-degree wood-fired oven. Counterintuitively, says Gemignani, that hot and fast method results in a thin but not necessarily crispy crust. “You’re talking about cooking a pizza in 90 seconds or less. That results in a dough that’s charred, but soft and pillowy. This is pizza that’s wet, sometimes even soupy, so it’s not meant for delivery; you want to eat it within five minutes after it drops.”
SQUARE
FREEWHEEL PIZZA CO. | CLAYTON
Randy Martin spent a lot of years working on the grid, including 25 as a stockbroker, before switching gears to attend culinary school and learning to make Neapolitan-style pizzas in Wine Country. So you can forgive him if he’s savoring his latest evolution, toiling out of a commercial kitchen in an industrial-zoned section of Clayton, where he spins 40 pies of his own design a night.
“It has been nice to do stuff that’s not so disciplined,” says the married father of two. “Cranking tunes—light rock, metal—wearing a T-shirt, drinking a beer, and making pizzas: That’s what I want to be doing.”
At his appropriately named Freewheel Pizza Co., Martin has built a cult following for what he calls “an adapted Brooklyn-style pizza” using prefermented hybrid sourdough topped with ingredients like blistered shish*to peppers, char siu bacon, and micro arugula. However, it’s arguably the square-pan pizza that has garnered the most attention for this out-of-the-way operation.
Inspired by the offerings at the Santucci’s pizzeria that he grew up eating at in Philadelphia, Martin bakes his “grandma” pizza in a 16-by-16 square pan, highlighted by whole-milk mozzarella and hand-crushed sauce made from a blend of Stanislaus tomatoes. The Detroit, meanwhile, is thicker, baked in a deeper 10-by-14 pan with the addition of aged cheddar and mozzarella to create the style’s characteristic caramelized crispy-cheesy crust. Per custom, it’s topped by two “racing stripes” of sauce, proving that despite his new freewheeling ways, Martin retains a deep-seated reverence for the traditions of his craft.
“In my kitchen, I have 20 cookbooks by top pizza chefs, and I’ve read every word,” he says. “It’s about respecting what you do, respecting yourself, and respecting the customers.” freewheelpizzaco.com. —E.F.
Pizza Parts: Square Pizzas
SICILIAN: Baked in a rectangular pan with olive oil, Sicilian pizzas have a deep crust that should also be light and fluffy. TRY: Slice House, Walnut Creek.
GRANDMA: Grandma style has a thinner, panfried crust with a heavy emphasis on the sauce, which can be sweeter and made from hand-crushed tomatoes. TRY: Bluebird Pizzeria, San Leandro.
DETROIT: Detroit style is characterized by cheese—Wisconsin-style brick, mozzarella, white cheddar, or a combination—that is pushed to the edge of the pan and forms a caramelization around the crust. TRY: Square Pie Guys, Oakland.
ROMAN: Perhaps the most gourmet of the squares, Roman style is defined by a superhydrated dough that makes a light, airy crust and often has higher-end toppings. TRY: Pollara Pizzeria, Berkeley.
Tony Says
Perhaps the hardest to pin down because of the many sub-categories—Detroit, Sicilian, Grandma, Roman—square style is probably best defined, according to Gemignani, by two characteristics: 1) It tends to have a deeper crust, and 2) it’s cooked in rectangular or square pans. “Ten years ago, you couldn’t find this anywhere, except for maybe Sicilian, but now you see Detroit and grandma style everywhere.”
CHICAGO
ZACHARY’S CHICAGO PIZZA | BERKELEY, OAKLAND, PLEASANT HILL, PLEASANTON
Picture a thick pie dripping with cheese and stuffed with the perfect assortment of meats and vegetables to your liking—all nestled between two layers of crisp golden dough and swathed liberally with tomato sauce on top. Those are the essential elements of a Chicago-style stuffed pizza at Zachary’s, a local mainstay since the 1980s.
Now with spots across the East Bay, including one that opened in Pleasanton last summer, Zachary’s was born in Oakland with the aim of adding a Californian touch to the beloved Chicago style.
“It’s a superhearty meal,” says Leandra Schuler, COO and one of Zachary’s employee-owners. “It’s a really good bang for the buck. It’s high on the scale of comfort food, and you can tailor it to your taste.”
Although “deep dish” and “Chicago” are often used interchangeably, Zachary’s stuffed pizzas differ from other deep-dish pies chiefly because of that second layer of dough; they also don’t have the cheesy crusts of stuffed-crust pizzas. Perhaps nowhere is Zachary’s attention to detail clearer than in the sauce—which is front and center, layered atop the pie, rather than underneath the cheese. The restaurant’s stuffed pizzas are adorned in a tomato mixture that Schuler describes as “zesty.”
“We have a proprietary blend of tomatoes that come to us every year,” says Schuler. “[They’re] slightly tangy—a little sweet—and we use them to make our different sauces. Our stuffed pizza sauce has chunkier bits of tomatoes in there, so there’s really great texture and flavors.”
It’s emblematic of Zachary’s laser focus on first-rate ingredients and attention to craft—as well as a dedication to its community. “Through the years, we have kept our focus on the basics—high-quality pizza with a really easygoing, family-friendly casual vibe,” says Schuler. “We take pride in what we do.” zacharys.com. —E.W.
For more, try Danville’s Blue Line Pizza, Little Star/the Star on Grand in Albany and Oakland, and Patxi’s Pizza in Dublin and Livermore.
Pizza Parts: Chicago Style
DEEP DISH: Cooked in a deep, round dish with crust up to the edges and layers of mozzarella and tomato sauce; cornmeal is often dusted on the crust.
STUFFED: Similar to deep dish but covered by a pie-like layer of dough with more sauce on top.
CAST IRON: Similar to Sicilian style but cooked in a round cast-iron pan.
TAVERN: Features an extra-thin, cracker-like crust, sometimes with cornmeal, and often cut into shareable squares.
Tony Says
While there are different styles, the traditional Chicago deep-dish pizza is round, with the dough pushed all the way up to the edges, cooked at a lower heat in a gas brick oven, and layered with sliced mozzarella on the bottom and a thick layer of sauce on top. “It’s similar to a baked casserole or round lasagna with pizza ingredients,” says Gemignani.
